I-T sleuths raid 35 premises of Congress MLA Rana Gurjeet

The investigation wing of the Income Tax Department on Thursday conducted raids at over 35 locations linked with Kapurthala Congress MLA and former minister Rana Gurjeet Singh. The raids started at 6 am at various locations in Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Advertisement

The I-T teams from Ludhiana under Principal Director (Investigation) Ashish Abrol are learnt to have been scrutinising documents and digital records from the phones, laptops and other gadgets at the three residences of Ranas in Sector 4 and 9 and flat number 53 in the MLA hostel.

The teams have also been conducting raids at the mills and plants of the sugar baron. Over 250 sleuths of the I-T Department are learnt to be involved in the raids with ITBP teams providing the required security.

Owning distilleries, sugar mills and agri-businesses in Uttarakhand, UP and Punjab, Rana is one of the richest MLAs in the Punjab Assembly. His son Rana Inder Partap Singh is an Independent MLA from Sultanpur Lodhi. The family owns two ethanol plants in Punjab, including one at Buttar village in Amritsar, and had also taken over a sugar mill at Phagwara recently. They have their farmhouse at Bajpur in Uttarakhand.

Rana was desirous of getting the Congress ticket for contesting the Lok Sabha election from Anandpur Sahib last year, but he could not succeed in that plan and had to shift to central politics. He was an MP from Jalandhar. His wife Rana Rajbans Kaur and his sister-in-law Sukhjinder Randhawa have also been MLAs earlier.